B is located between A and C.

Beijing South Railway Station, sunny.

Six years. It feels like nothing has changed.

Chen Ze scanned his ID card to enter the second-floor platform. He had just been to this grand waiting hall before his rebirth; between 2024 and 2018, it seemed there was no difference at all.

"Beep."

After scanning a code to buy a bottle of Ganten water at a convenience store, Chen Ze watched the crowd waiting to board and slowly walked over.

Beijing and Tianjin are adjacent, both centrally administered municipalities; the high-speed train ride takes only half an hour.

Tianjin.

A massive explosion would go on to ruin this future municipality.

It was Chen Ze's second hometown, and the place where his dreams of being a wealthy second-generation heir had both begun and shattered.

He had lived in both Beijing and Tianjin for six years. The two cities were different, though he couldn't quite put his finger on how. Perhaps Beijing was repressed happiness, while Tianjin was happy repression—at least, in the eyes of outsiders like them, that was how it felt.

The queue for the 10:30 departure was nearly finished. Chen Ze slowly tightened the bottle cap and walked straight ahead.

The crowd was noisy yet strangely calm. He stepped into the carriage, phone in hand, looking for his seat as he walked.

He had originally wanted to buy a business-class seat—it was only around 200 yuan, after all—but the tickets had sold out remarkably fast.

For short trips like this, plenty of people were willing to splurge on business or first-class seats, leaving him with only a second-class one. But since the journey was only half an hour, he didn't mind.

"11C."

Muttering the number, Chen Ze found his seat. He had just spent his cash, and he didn't even have any luggage.

He was about to sit down when he caught a glimpse of 11A by the window and froze. Warm, lazy sunlight filtered in, casting a faint glow on a head of dark, silky hair.

Seeing it was a girl, he calmly leaned forward, bracing himself against the back of the chair to steal a glance, then looked toward the middle seat.

Sitting between A and C was B—a middle-aged man in a gray shirt, wearing glasses and looking very much like an engineer.

Chen Ze reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Brother, are you with her?"

Hearing this, the man followed Chen Ze's gaze, shook his head bluntly, and said, "No."

"Well, I'm with her. Could we swap seats? It’s much more comfortable on the aisle."

"?"

The middle-aged man felt something was off, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what. An aisle seat was indeed better than the middle.

"Sure."

"Thanks."

You could always count on the emotional stability of an engineer.

The middle-aged man nodded patiently and even considerately stepped out to clear the aisle for him. Chen Ze didn't stand on ceremony; he plopped into the middle seat and turned his attention to the girl reading a book.

She had a head of jet-black hair, slightly messy, half-shrouding her fair, supple skin. She wore a clean, crisp, and gentle French-style pleated white shirt, which, instead of looking bulky or sloppy, appeared elegant and refined. The bow at the center added a touch of girlish charm, fresh and ethereal.

When looking at a girl, one looks at the face and the legs. The seat wasn't particularly spacious, and she was occupying barely more than half of hers.

She wore a blue denim high-waisted skirt, carrying a hint of collegiate style—gentle, lovely, clean, and pure.

Looking further up, her slender, porcelain-like hands were clutching a cyan-covered book, on the back of which one could vaguely make out some small text.

The girl was completely focused, enjoying the sunlight streaming in from the window. She leaned against the wall as if trying to make more space for others, her slightly flushed ears standing out against her fair skin.

"Are you reading *Plants and Trees of the World*?"

After his inspection, Chen Ze spoke up. Perhaps his leaning in had crossed a line, for as the girl slowly turned her head, she removed her earphones, looking a bit bewildered.

She remembered that the person next to her hadn't been Chen Ze.

"Yes."

The volume in her earphones wasn't loud—or perhaps nothing was playing at all, and they were just for noise cancellation.

But noise cancellation couldn't block out someone approaching.

She nodded and offered a polite smile, then turned back to her book, giving off a "strangers keep away" vibe.

But she didn't know how thick-skinned Chen Ze was. "Ze-dog" leaned in even closer and smiled softly:

"I didn't expect this. So you’re a girl who loves life, one who can turn the mundane—every meal, every little detail—into a poetic existence."

"Have you read this book too?"

The girl didn't take his bait. Instead, she tilted her head to look at him, then looked away again, as if confirming something.

Her tone had risen slightly at first, then went flat, as if she hadn't taken a liking to Chen Ze at all.

This was normal.

After all, based on Chen Ze's current attire, his first impression wasn't exactly that of a "good guy."

A gray-green polo shirt, black straight-leg casual trousers—before coming to the station, Chen Ze had grabbed a sandwich, got a haircut, and bought a pair of Jordan 1s and Cartier sunglasses.

He wasn't ugly; his refined features paired with the sunglasses actually made him look handsomer, but it was these very sunglasses that gave him an air of a "player," making him look anything but an honest kid.

"I have."

Chen Ze noticed her change in demeanor, but being timid wasn't his style. He continued immediately:

"I really like a line from this book: 'Plants and trees have their own hearts; why seek the beauty to pluck them?'"

The girl paused for two seconds. When she turned her head again, her hair covered her bright, large eyes. She asked doubtfully:

"Is that written in this book?"

"Oh, no."

In this day and age, you have to use a "montage" technique to pick up girls. Chen Ze smiled at the girl, who was busy smoothing out her hair:

"What I quoted was the tail couplet of a poem written by a Prime Minister named Zhang Jiuling during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, after he was demoted. It’s my own shallow interpretation after bowing down to this book."

There was no flicker in the girl's eyes. She simply folded the page with her finger, closed the book, and asked with a hint of curiosity:

"So, have you finished the book?"

Her curiosity—someone who didn't know better might have thought she was being prejudiced, as if she were saying, "Even a poser like you reads books seriously?" though she didn't mean it that way.

But as it happened, it was a coincidence.

Chen Ze wasn't actually a reader, but he had sold books in his previous life—the kind you see in livestream rooms.

He had worked as a product operations manager. Even if he hadn't read the book word for word, he had a general understanding of it.

It was like not having watched every frame of a movie, but having watched a film analysis video.

"I've read it well enough, otherwise I wouldn't have just quoted the tail couplet to express how I see it."

Chen Ze gestured toward the book in her hand, then took off his sunglasses and smiled, striking while the iron was hot:

"Hello, nice to meet..."

"Chen Ze?"

The hammer of his "striking" hit halfway. Chen Ze looked at the girl, whose eyes were filled with a mix of surprise and confusion, and went blank.

The next second, the girl sat up straight in a slightly clumsy way, brushing back her hair to reveal her full face, which had been hidden before.

Chen Ze was stunned. The girl closed her book and hugged it to her chest, suppressing her excitement as she smiled:

"What a coincidence, are you heading back to Tianjin too?"

"This train's final stop is Tianjin."

Chen Ze said with a smile. Using a joking tone, he quickly turned his head toward the man sitting next to him.

The two made eye contact, and the middle-aged man quickly retracted his "eavesdropping" posture, accidentally hitting the lock screen button, then hurriedly turning it back on.

Ignoring what the middle-aged man might be thinking, Chen Ze was completely shocked. He turned his head away just to regulate his breathing. When he turned back, he wore a wry smile:

"You only just recognized me? I thought you were talking to me because you knew who I was. How have you been lately?"

Hearing this, the girl, with her messy long hair, closed her eyes slightly. Her long lashes fluttered, and her cheeks were unusually flushed.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, pointed toward him, then pulled her hand back, looking a bit awkward:

"You were wearing sunglasses, and you've changed so much. Of course I didn't recognize you. I didn't mean to."

"I forgive you."

Chen Ze said with a smile, eager to end this topic. He leaned back in his seat, unable to hide his happiness:

"Why are you heading back to Tianjin? Isn't the semester not over yet? Don't universities usually start their break in July?"

As the platform bell rang, the train beneath them began to move slowly, heading toward Tianjin.

Behind Chen Ze, he didn't see the middle-aged man glancing at them, pushing up his glasses in utter confusion.

*Wait, you guys actually know each other?*